Containers, cartons, boxes, and the like (collectively referred to herein as cartons) are commonly formed from a planar substrate such as corrugated cardboard, although other material may be used. The substrate is often printed with graphics, scored, and then folded at scored edges through a typically 90° fold angle to form a three-dimensional carton. The various planes of the carton, e.g., top, bottom, sides, are often referred to as panels, and a panel may be formed from, or include, several flaps. A side of a carton that comprises a single panel without flaps may also be termed a carton surface.
FIG. 1 depicts the above nomenclature for an exemplary carton 10. Carton 10 is formed from a sheet or roll of substrate material 20 that is scored, cut, (or cut and then scored), and folded generally at scored fold edges 30 through a fold angle θ to define various carton panels. Fold angle θ is typically 90°, where 0° is defined as being in the plane of the unfolded material. Carton 10 is shown with upper and lower panels 40, 50, front and rear panels 60, 70, and left and right panels 80 and 90. Front panel 60 is shown as comprising a single panel and thus may also be referred to as carton surface 60. In the example shown in FIG. 1, upper panel 40 is formed from two half-flaps 40A and 40B, and right panel 90 is formed from no less than five flaps 90A, 90B, 90C, 90D, and 90E. It is understood that panels may, but need not be, formed from flaps.
The outer panel surfaces of cartons frequently will have been printed with graphic designs that can advertise the product within and convey other useful information. The printed design may be graphics per se, text, or other indicia (collectively referred to herein as graphics). In the prior art, a graphics artist typically will design the graphics for container 10 on a panel-by-panel basis. Such design is undertaken without the graphics artist having knowledge of how the carton is folded, or even how some of the panels may be formed from individual flaps, or portions of flaps. Thus the graphics for upper panel 40 may be rendered as a first electronic file, created on a computer using a software drawing program, the graphics for front and rear panels 60 and 70 may be rendered as second and third electronic files. The right panel 90 may be rendered as yet another electronic file. In some instances the flaps that comprise a panel may themselves be created as separate electronic files. The graphics depicts on right panel 90 may generated from as many as five separate electronic files, one file for each flaps 90A, . . . 90E. While the various panel files may be combined into a single file, the point to be made is that the graphics are generally created on a per-panel or per-flap basis, almost as though separate graphics design projects were being undertaken.
In creating the various electronic files, the graphics artist generally is concerned only with the dimensions of the various substrate areas of interest, e.g., the overall size of the individual panels and flaps to be printed. How the substrate will be folded to form a carton is generally the responsibility of a structural designer and too often may be of little concern to the graphics artist. Indeed, the graphics artist typically is more concerned with how the printed graphics will look on individual panels or on the finished product—a three-dimensional carton, than how the graphics needs to be laid out on the different flaps.
Computerized tools are known in the art to aid in the structural design of the carton by embedding folding information in the structural design, and to allow the graphical designer to take a flat or planar layout and, using folding information, view the design on a computer monitor in a rendered three-dimensional form.
But it can be very challenging to design and print graphics on a substrate to ensure that after the carton is cut from the substrate and folded, the various graphic images will have been printed with proper orientation, sizing, and good registration, e.g., such that there is image continuity for an image that may extend over more than one panel. Understandably proper orientation, sizing, and registration can be problematic where images on several folded flaps combine to create a larger panel image, e.g., in right panel 90 in FIG. 1. Designing and creating such graphics is both labor intensive and very prone to error, including error from print bleeding.
What is needed is a computerized method by which panel folding sequence and other carton structural information can be embedded into a structural design file for use by a graphics artist. Such carton structural information should enable a graphics artist to use a software tool to display the carton in a planar, unfolded, layout state, and to design and superimpose graphics upon the substrate areas to be printed on an actual carton. Given the graphics that will appear on a given panel of the completed carton, a computerized method should automatically position and manipulate the graphics as required to properly appear on the flaps comprising the panel. For graphics appearing on panels that are made up of different flaps, the computerized method will copy and position the graphics onto the different corresponding substrate areas. Further such information and software tool should enable the graphics artist to create and view on a computer monitor a three-dimensional image of the completed carton. Preferably such computerized method will enable the artist to rotate, scale, copy, “cut” or “paste” portions of graphics on the various panels and flaps, and to generate clipping masks as needed. The graphics artist should be able to manipulate such computer-generated three-dimensional image to visually confirm that proper registration and layout of graphics will indeed occur for each panel and flap in producing printed cartons, and to make changes to the proposed graphics, as necessary.
The present invention provides such a computerized method, and provides cartons bearing graphics that are designed and laid out according to such method.